I ain't afraid of no ghosts!

Or, why Halloween is a Catholic holiday.

Photo by Beth Teutschmann on Unsplash

Rant incoming…

People seem to think that I’m a pretty easygoing guy, and that’s mostly true. But those who know me well can attest I have little tolerance for BS, especially when that BS hurts other people. I believe that sort of thing deserves to be exposed and called out for what it is.

Today’s offender is Catholic News Agency, an outlet of the conservative Catholic media giant EWTN. Now, I want to say from the outset that I have no personal axe to grind against the Eternal Word Television Network or its subsidiaries. I think that, on balance, they do a lot of good work. Indeed, EWTN’s programming (particularly the daily televised Mass from the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word) has provided spiritual nourishment for me in tough times.

With all that said. . .

Perpetuating harmful Halloween myths…

This morning I was idly scrolling through my feed on “The Website Formerly Known as Twitter” when saw something that made my blood boil. It was a link to this article: ‘The Dark Charm of Halloween’ is title of new book by International Association of Exorcists.

Apparently, this book (currently available only in Italian) purports to educate Catholics about the spiritual dangers of Halloween. In reality (to judge from the various quotations cited in the CNA article) it perpetuates a litany of falsehoods based on outdated scholarship and modern urban myths. Let’s unpack a few of these, shall we?

The authors of the book (Father Francesco Bamonte and Alberto Castaldini) claim that Halloween is not harmless spooky fun but “in reality, it is the representation of a pagan religious celebration: the Samhain festival originating in the Celtic world.”

This is false.

Don’t just take my word for it. Catholic Answers apologist Joe Heschmeyer recently did a fantastic job on his podcast exposing this idea for what it is: debunked pseudo-scholarship without any historical foundation that has been co-opted by secularists and neopagans to promote their own anti-Catholic narrative about Halloween. Sadly, many Christians have fallen for this modern myth. Check out Joe’s excellent YouTube video for all the details.

Here’s the basics: Samhain was a harvest festival celebrated in pre-Christian Ireland. It was not primarily religious in character. It probably involved bonfires and revelry. The CNA article quotes the completely speculative assertion that on Samhain “animal sacrifices were performed and, in all likelihood, even human sacrifices.” To my knowledge, this is nothing but baseless scare-tactics. And even if it were true, it is of no consequence anyway since Samhain was not the progenitor of Halloween.

Halloween is a contraction of All Hallows Eve. It is the vigil of the Solemnity of All Saints celebrated by the universal Church on November 1 for centuries. On the following day, November 2, the Church commemorates All Souls Day by encouraging believers to pray for the souls of the faithful departed and visit cemeteries to honor their memory. Halloween has its origins in the Christian liturgical calendar, not paganism.¹

Modern commercialized Halloween is an culturally American holiday. It’s an excuse for candy companies and advertisers to make a lot of money. The CNA article cites a quotation claiming that Halloween celebrations are “closely linked today to dark realities such as witchcraft and satanism.” It’s certainly true that neopagans and other enthusiasts of “the occult” have put their own unhealthy spin on Halloween. But why should we let the enemies of Christ rob Christians of a holiday that the Church invented?

So, what’s the big deal?

The idea that by carving a jack-o'-lantern or dressing up as a skeleton or giving out candy to children on October 31 you are putting yourself “in communion with [the] maleficent spiritual current” is a preposterous notion. But this kind of anti-Halloween moralizing is not simply wrongheaded and misinformed. It’s actively harmful to real-life believers.

Here’s something you might not know about me. I suffer from an anxiety disorder. Often this anxiety manifests itself as an obsessive compulsive tendency in the form of scrupulosity. According to author and psychologist Kevin Vost, scrupulosity is a condition that “produces feelings of doubt, guilt, and anxiety. It typically involves seeing mortal sin where there is only venial sin or obsessively focusing on possible or imaginary sins that may not be sinful at all.”

The International Association of Exorcists and the editors of CNA (who provided no balance and little context in their reporting) implicitly claim that the harmless fun Halloween parties and trick-or-treating is actually putting your soul under the influence of the devil. Such baseless sensationalism and needless fear-mongering will undoubtedly cause many Catholics and other believers suffering under the burden of scrupulosity to agonize over whether their plastic Halloween decorations have but their eternal salvation at risk.

I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!

I want to be perfectly clear about something: I am not accusing Catholic News Agency of being intentionally cruel to scrupulous souls or of willfully trafficking in misinformation. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps their editorial staff is simply uninformed about the Catholic origins of Halloween.

In any case, both as a writer of paranormal fiction and as a fan of “spooky season”, I took personal umbrage with CNA’s irresponsible article. I urge them to retract it at once—or at least revise it to include more helpful context—before it does more spiritual and psychological harm.

As Christians, we know that Christ has conquered the devil and we need not be afraid of demons or ghosts or any other uncanny supernatural forces. Of course, we shouldn’t directly meddle with these things (the Church correctly forbids the practices of witchcraft and consulting mediums) but at the same time our faith does not forbid telling ghost stories, watching scary movies, or dressing up as Dracula.

We can acknowledge the problematic and negative aspects of contemporary Halloween celebrations. But we shouldn’t adopt a puritanical and scrupulous attitude about a day that brings joy to kids (and adults) all across America.

So, long live Halloween! And have a blessed Feast of All Saints.

Postscript

If you’re interested in hearing more from me about ghosts and the paranormal, stay tuned! I just finished an interview with author Gary Jansen about the horror genre and the Catholic imagination. If you’re looking for some fun Halloween reading, I recommend Gary’s spooky memoir Holy Ghosts: Or, How a (Not So) Good Catholic Boy Became a Believer in Things That Go Bump in the Night.

1. Since I originally wrote this piece, I’ve come across some more information that better explains how Halloween gradually shifted from the Christian commemoration of All Saints to the modern secular holiday about witches, goblins, vampires, and candy corn.

As Europeans immigrated to America, they brought with them various folk beliefs and superstitions associated with Autumn and the waning of the year when the nights get longer.

Among these practices were “souling” (going door to door to beg prayers and alms for the souls of the dead) and “guising” (dressing in disguise to ward off evil spirits that might lurk in the dark).

By the early twentieth century, these traditions had morphed into trick-or-treating. Popular literature and the rise of Hollywood helped to spread this new secular amalgamation of All Saints, All Souls, and European folklore that appropriated the label “Halloween.”

My original point still stands: Halloween is not a mythical pagan holiday that was “Christianized.” It is in fact a Christian holiday that was secularized through the accretion of folk practices and the rise of commercialism.

I want to thank Dom Bettinelli on the SQPN Discord server for sharing these fascinating insights.